The First Play Thread of First Plays

[Tobal]

HoloCure: Save the Fans which is free on steam with zero gacha, basically fan made game based off Vampire Survivors genre, so build a load out by using your level ups or anvils on the ground and fend of hundreds of 'fans'.

Differences between it and VS, every character has a personal weapon with 3 unique skills which can be levelled up to make them crazy, rather than just starting with a shared weapon. Shared weapons and items still exist and need unlocking, shops are there to use your coins to upgrade the starting strength of the unique powers, super power and shared weapons. As for the gameplay, it has alot more bullet hell moments the japanese love in there indie games so expect to take plenty of damage, but with the way items for healing are powerful and comes in alot of types, i think it a game built around making sure you have that HP regen than dodging damage all together.

The other extra is Holo house, place for mini games, fishing, farming and fan management to get alot of extra coin, specially fishing will net you way more coins in small amount of time than fighting will.

Solid game, worth a go.

[Neon Ignition]

Finished Spider-Man 2 and it ended as it began. Insomniacs set pieces remain excellent but the game is glorified DLC. Lots of added moves that add pretty much nothing to the core of the game and another checklist on top of basic Arkham combat. It's solid and fun but doesn't deliver to the level the hype has it be.

[Neon Ignition]

A few hours into RoboCop now and you can approach it one of two ways.

1 - FPS: As a shooter it's objectively poor if you directly compare it to its peers because the movement is so slow and limited. Typically facing a small number of easily disposed enemies.

2 - A RoboCop Simulator: If you're approaching it instead from how much gives you a sense of embodying the character and therefore you accept his movement limitations.... it's ****ing great

[fuse]

Been playing Harmony: Fall of Reverie of late. In short, it's a VN with a big focus on branching paths, and building alignment to a variety of different (personified) aspirations. Rather than fumbling blindly though, you go into each chapter with all of the routes mapped out in front of you so that for the most part, you can plot out how you want to do things, which options you're happy locking yourself into, who you'll please and upset, and so on. Story is designed around the idea of a parallel world which is where these aspirations live and that while it influences the 'real world' and vice versa, your character is uniquely able to perceive and travel to. Kinda liking it, but it's nothing too groundbreaking either - the biggest surprise being that you're always being given the opportunity to look under the hood and see what decisions you've got coming up so you can plot a course rather than applying more guesswork.

[fuse]

Spent a bit of time with the new Dai Ou Jou port over the weekend, tinkering with the arrange modes and so on.

Also started Venba last night and finished it shortly thereafter. So, it's not a long game, but it is a heartfelt one that's about a couple who have moved from India to start a new life in Canada, with the gameplay parts centred around celebrating their food and the purpose they find in cooking for each other. It's a small handful of recipes rather than a Cooking Mama-esque library of them, and the challenge is more about applying some guesswork to the methods rather than a skills test, but it all hangs together quite nicely.

[briareos_kerensky]

Custom Mech Wars


I thought this would be EDF with robots, and, well, it's just that, but it lacks all of EDF's charm. You go around in your mech destroying other mechs, and in later missions there are bigger versions of the same enemy mechs. It's not like there are that many mechs to eliminate (at least in normal mode), and being in a giant war machine removes a lot of nuance from maps...of which there are probably 5 in total. There are no classes like in more recent EDF games, and enemies don't even make up in numbers for their lack of intelligence.

Missions fly by with no real highlight, it almost feels like playing the very first EDF but without the bonker factor or the jankiness of a low-budget game...despite being one.

As far as mindless slaughter of giant war machines go, Custom Mech Wars is barely average.

The customisation options are many and you can do some really bizarre stuff (especially when you discover that your mech can have as many body parts as you want...like two torso, four sets of legs, etc), and how you place weapons actually influences line of fire, but it will quite a while before you have a good variety of parts.


Triggerheart Exelica


On one side you have M2 ports, on the other side you have this new Switch port of Triggerheart Exelica. I don't have the X360 version, but I think this new edition is just that and nothing more. Aside from standard stuff like lives, bomb count, extends, and volume levels, options are limited to screen rotation, wallpapers, and position of life/bomb counters.

Game modes are arcade, story, and a one-continue mode called arrange. Faint Tear's mode from the PS2 version is missing, but there are online leaderboards if you play with default settings.

The publisher commissioned new character art and a new logo for the game case, but the game uses the original versions.

Triggerheart Exelica itself is average, and I'd say mostly remembered due to its protagonists and for being a late Dreamcast game more than anything else. It's not a bad shooter, but it's not one of the greatest either. It runs well on Switch, and that's about it.
​

[Neon Ignition]

I've finished RoboCop: Rogue City now and if you go into it wanting something that recreates the tone, general franchise experience then it's very good at what it does


Just started Saints Row as well, after so much drama around its release and the studio being shut down... it's perfectly fine.

[Lebowski]

Teardown PS+ (also available on xbox pc)

Started on this last night, and I was quite surprised to find it's not exactly what it says on the Tin, I was expecting a sandbox style destroy everything game, but it's more than that. The first level sees you despatched to a shady building site in the middle of the night to destroy an old listed building, you can drive diggers though it, smash it to bits with your sledgehammer, blow it up, or set it on fire the choice is yours really. I had a go with everything. It's fun enough, but I don't think the game could sustain itself if this was all you did.

The game starts to really shine in its heist style missions, the first of these requires you to remove 3 clocking in systems from a factory, you have unlimited prep time but once you pick up your first Mark you set off an alarm and start a 60-second count-down before you're rumbled. Planning out a route and making it so you have a smooth run between your targets is where this game comes alive. Wall in the way? No probs drive a digger through it, fence in the way? Blowtorch your way through the lock and swing it open wide. need to get on a roof? Drive that crane into position and lower the crane arm to make a good quick route to scramble up. It really is a great playground, and having a purpose and a goal gives you something to strive too rather than just finding the most efficient way to knock something down.

It's this smashing and constructing the perfect run on heists that makes the game come into its own. It's super satisfying when a plan comes together, and what's great is it's up to you how you achieve the objectives, theirs no right or wrong way. Variety is added with bonus objectives, stealing two cars might be your current goal, but can you also steal the logbooks from a safe and grab a toolkit too. What these extra objectives do is make you greedy, they stretch you thinly so you have to come up with an even more crazy plan to get things done in the short time you have.

[huxley]

A few hours into RoboCop now and you can approach it one of two ways.

1 - FPS: As a shooter it's objectively poor if you directly compare it to its peers because the movement is so slow and limited. Typically facing a small number of easily disposed enemies.

2 - A RoboCop Simulator: If you're approaching it instead from how much gives you a sense of embodying the character and therefore you accept his movement limitations.... it's ****ing great

Just Starting this, goes with 2

[Lebowski]

After initially bouncing off Hogwarts Legacy (I found it all a bit overwhelming) I picked it back up for nothe go when i had a decent chunk of time to sink into it, the exploration of the castle and the massive surrounding area is pretty fun, combat feels pretty nice and juggling someone in the air with a decent combo dodging parrying and mixing up your attacks is great fun.

If you're a fan of the films and books, theirs so much here to love, the world they have built is crazy, the detail of the castle and environments is truly amazing, the corridors are full of life with moving paintings, students milling around and a massive amount of secrets and puzzles to discover. The world outside the castle is pretty special too with Hogsmeade and Hogwarts being the main quest hub, supporting a massive sprawling map to explore, including small hamlets old ruins and of course the forbidden forest that is full of spiders goblins poachers and all sorts of other enemies.

It can at times feel a bit like you're in an endless tutorial though, as it drip feeds new mechanics though its lessons, which introduce you to, casting spells. Flying brooms, brewing potions, and growing ingredients in Herbology. Ive done a couple of the dungeon type areas so far full of enemies and traps, the forbidden forrest dungeion is a treasure filled cave crawling with spiders, which hamper your way far more than the light puzzles elements.

It's a pretty nice package overall and for the price at the moment it's a lot of game for your money, if you're not a fan of the world you may bounce off it though as it's a lot of nods to fans of the world and little in-jokes about the lore of Harry Potter which honestly I've found a joy to discover. The main stories pretty good so far, and it has that epic Harry Potter feel to it like you're someone special in this world because you can see traces of ancient magic. The main story is all about this and how only a handful of magic users over the centuries of wizard kind have had this talent, this draws the attention of the current big bad wizard who marks you as his enemy.

[briareos_kerensky]

Bought Ace Combat 7 on Steam as it was on offer for less than €10, and completed it today. It was OK, a bit bland if not for a couple of missions against two "bosses". The right stick for looking around is way too sensible and the game supports HOTAS but no rudder pedals, and remapping buttons on the Thrustmaster Warthog is a pain...so I went back to pads, only to discover the game only supports X Box pads, no matter what kind of wrappers/input method you use. Well, at least I know my XBO pad still works.

Writers seem more interested in narrating names than a story and cutscenes use the proved technique of "tell, don't show...or tell and show, but only sparingly.". There are certain things that will make you smile if you know aircrafts (100+ missiles loaded onto a plane notwithstanding), like being able to accelerate to 2000 mystery units (I think it's knots, but who knows) with your landing gear deployed, or taking off from an aircraft carrier with any kind of plane you want.

I wish the targeting system was completely reworked, or at least give you a "nearest enemy" option, because I'm not particularly interested in an enemy 12000 second mystery units away (feet?) when I have two bandits on my tail unloading their 100+ missiles on my exhausts.

[Tobal]

Harold Halibut on pc/gamepass - the trailer for the game is alot more interesting than the actual 'game', i wouldn't call it a point a click as there no puzzles, you just walk around talking to people with alot pretentious indie dialogue going (and plenty of lolrandom humour), every single character is deeply unlikeable and Harold himself seems to change personality to suit whatever lame conversion needs to happen to move story along. Made it about hour and 30 mins in when the front cover alien turns up, then just turned it off.

Other annoyances are the lack of directions when told to do something as all the conversations are treated like you the player know where all the facilities are (which is fine if it was a real convo for harold) and 90% of the time the PDA which holds the objectives will not tell what area it is in, add in that there no map to see where to go or what areas connect to which.

looks nice at least.